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Politics/Public Affairs/Goverment

May 14, 2016

(Photo: Michael Deep poses on Wednesday at Waubeeka Golf Links, in front of a concept drawing of his "country inn" proposal)

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- Amid an atmosphere of last-minute lobbying by Waubeeka Golf Links public owner Michael Deep, The Greylock Independent website, published by the non-profit Citizen Media Inc., published on Thursday a multi-question "unofficial voters guide" to a controversial issue that will face voters at the Williamstown Town Meeting next week.

Publication of the neutral-point-of-view voters guide came amid these developments:

North Adams insurance broker and rental-property owner Michael Deep taped a 50-minute discussion about his 120-"unit" resort lodging proposal with Stanley Parese, his attorney. The program, viewable on Williamstown's public-access WiliNet channel, can also be viewed online (WATCH VIDEO). In the video, Parese runs through a description of the project, and Deep appears emotional at one point as he talks about his worry that a closing of the Waubeeka Golf Links could put 40 people out of jobs.

At least three Williamstown residents reported that they had been recipients of what appeared to them to be survey or polling telephone calls in which the callers asked questions about the Waubeeka proposal and then made assertions about it. One of recipients said her caller-ID showed the call came from a Chicopee-area phone number. When GreylockNews.com called the number, a voice message was heard to say: "Research call center .... is not available ... please leave a message after the tone." An email to Parese asking if his client was the source of any polling calls was not returned. One of the three phone-call recipients said: "I too received a call from someone who said she represented the Waubeeka golf club and asked whether I supported it: when I made clear that I didn't know enough about the issue at the time to know what my position was on it, and that I didn't want to be lobbied, she said that if I wanted to find out more about it (with a clear sense that that meant why it was a good idea), I could call at a number she recited, but which I didn't record. Since I have no relation to the club that would make me a good person to encourage, I imagine that others were likely contacted as well."

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – How big a hotel-and-golf complex could be developed at Waubeeka Golf Links if town-meeting voters next week take the advice of Williamstown selectmen?

One possible answer is: A resort 50 percent larger than the current Williams Inn. Another possible answer: Whatever a developer thinks can fit on 10 acres.

That’s because Monday’s 4-1 vote of the selectmen sided with Waubeeka owner Mike Deep’s desire not to have any square-footage limitation on his project buildings. The only restriction is a limitation of 120 “guest units” – which could be multiple rooms.

Deep’s attorney, Stanley Parese, declined at both meetings to suggest a square-foot measurement that his client would find acceptable. However, Parese already informed the town that a “concept” estimate would be 115,000 square feet, according to both Parese and town planner Andrew Groff, including: A hotel-restaurant of 102,000 square feet, and a golf clubhouse, pro shop, cart barn and maintenance building totaling another 13,000 square feet.

“Gross square feet” (GSF) refers to a sum of the usable space on all floors of a structure, not just the ground footprint. And it would of course include per-room hallway space, mechanical shafts, stairways, kitchens, meeting rooms, dining rooms, offices and the like.

Groff’s research for the Planning Board found the present 126-room Williams Inn has 70,491 GSF, or an average of 559 GSF per guest room. He found the 49-room Orchards Hotel has 51,346 GSF (1,048 per room average). The 195-guest-room Equinox resort and spa in Manchester, Vt., has 137,500 square feet of hotel and dining (705 per room average) and 28,000 GSF of golf clubhouse and overall maintenance. Finally, Groff found the 125-room Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge has 82,944 GSF (663 per room average) for its hotel and restaurants..

Averaging smallest GSF room sizes of the compared hotels yields a figure of 743 gross square feet, as potentially typical for a hotel with restaurant facilities. On that basis, a 120 “room” hotel and restaurant at Waubeeka would likely be at least 89,000 GSF.

A visit by GreylockNews.com to the Berkshire Mountain Lodge (the former Patriot Suites) on Dan Fox Drive in Pittsfield yielded additional information. Berkshire Mountain lodge is owned by the Berkley Group, the same Fort Lauderdale worldwide timeshare resort developer that owns Vacation Village at Jiminy Peak in Hancock.

Berkshire Mountain Lodge has 146 two-room suites averaging 900 square-feet per suite and records of the Pittsfield city assessors’ records give the gross square footage of the five-story building as 120,072 square feet. Each suite has a bedroom, a large bathroom and a living room with kitchen appliances installed at one end of the livingroom.

"Rooms, units" and "kitchens"

The language of both the selectmen-endorsed Waubeeka proposal sought by Deep and the planning-board endorsed proposal both define a “country inn” as a permitted use in the zoning overlay they would create. It is defined as “an establishment where overnight transient sleeping accommodations are provided to lodgers in one or more guest units without kitchens.” Nowhere do the proposal talk about “rooms.”

In addition, neither state building code or local rules appears to define the word “kitchen” leaving the meaning of that word to common assumptions Is an area of a room that has some appliances in it a “kitchen.”

Thus an all-suites lodge like the Berkshire Mountain Lodge timeshare structure in Pittsfield would be a permitted use under either proposal. It is considered general against the law (see North Carolina and Florida cases) to use zoning to regulate ownership, thus nothing in the proposals would prevent the use of a Waubeeka structure for multi-room timeshares.

Assuming 900 square feet per “guest unit” across 120 units, the Waubeeka hotel and dining facility could conceivably be 108,000 gross square feet over three floors, or about 36,000 GSF per floor. The Pittsfield timeshare development averages 24,014 GSF per floor.

Thus, a permitted all-suites hotel as would be typical of a timeshare development – something that is not restricted by any of the zoning proposals before town meeting on Tuesday – could have an estimated ground footprint 50% larger than the Berkshire Mountain Lodge.

Groff, the town planner, says an average single hotel room is about 500 GSF. That’s consistent with the Williams Inn figure. If a Waubeeka project were built to a room size more typical of The Equinox – considered a high-end resort – at about 700 GSF per room, that would entail an 84,000 GSF, three-story building, or about a 28,000 square-foot ground footprint – still about 16 percent larger on the ground than the Pittsfield timeshare – which is on 17 acres.

All of this is speculative, because both Deep nor his attorney have consistently declined to provide to GreylockNews any definitive figures, despite receiving a detailed email on May 9 from GreylockNews.com outlining a similar analysis to that give above. They say that, because Deep has no developer lined up yet and therefore no definitive plan, they would be speculating.

Instead, voters – and officials -- are speculating.

“I don’t know what the 120 rooms means in terms of square footage,” town resident Stephanie Boyd told selecmen at their Monday meeting. “There is not something we have been able to get answered.” Boyd erroneously referred to rooms, when both proposals speak of “guest units.”

Adding Andrew Hogeland, a selectman: “One-hundred and twenty units doesn’t mean anything terms of size to people . . . the Williams inn is about 120 units and Sweetwood is about 70 units but their sizes are very different . . . the concern about using units as the only unit of measurement is, nobody knows what that means.”

Hogeland, who lives in South Williamstown near Waubeeka, also said he thought the lack of a square-foot measurement would make it difficult for Deep’s zoning-change bid to pass. He said: “And at Town Meeting, which is the last time that the Town Meeting will have a say on how big this development is going to be – if they say how big it is going to be based on a number of units, which isn’t even a measurement, that’s going to be a big hurdle, I think, to get over.”

May 10, 2016

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- In close contests, Susan Puddester and Christopher Kapiloff took seats on the Williamstown Planning Board on Tuesday. Jeffrey Thomas will join the Board of Selectmen and voters elected Jane Patton to a new term as selectman. Joseph Bergeron and Dan Caplinger will join the elementary-school committee.

Puddester, wife of the second-ranked administrator at Williams College, and Kapiloff, a Williamstown native and school safety-glass entrepreneur, won with 54.4% and 46.9% of the vote, respectively. Puddester defeated Sarah Gardner, who got 45.6% of the vote in a two-way race with Puddester for one seat. Gardner is a Williams environmental-science professor and planning expert. She has been among a three-vote majority on the Planning Board seeking to limit the physical size of a proposed 120-unit hotel at Waubeeka Golf Links sought by Michael Deep.

Kapiloff grew up in a house adjacent to the hotel site, and has been generally supportive. Neither Kapiloff nor Puddester have formal planning training. Kapiloff, with 46.9% of the vote, overcame Anne Hogeland (42.1%), an attorney with years of service on various town boards, who lives in South Williamstown and had also sought to limit the square footage of the hotel proposal. Kapiloff also overcame Bruce MacDonald, a real-estate developer, who got 7.1% of the vote in the three-way race for the second Planning Board seat.

The elementary-school contest was a five-way race for two seats. Bergeron garnered 28.9% of the vote and Caplinger 20.5%.

Here are the results, as tallied and read by Town Clerk Mary Kennedy (click on the photos to rotate and enlarge for reading).

May 04, 2016

This blog post was changed on May 9 to insert the word "building"where underlined in the third paragraph, and also to replace the word "rooms" with "lodging suites" as underlined. The changes add specificity to owner Mike Deep's proposal to town meeting.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – Town meeting voters were advised on Wednesday to approve a zoning change to allow a developer to put a hotel of up to 50,000 square feet (roughly 50 individual rooms) alongside the Waubeeka Golf Links.

The Planning Board split 3-2 to make the recommendation, establishing the square-foot limit on the hotel, as they sought to deal with course owner Michael Deep's threat that he will otherwise close the scenic 18-hole public golf course and seek to build affordable housing there.

Its members did so after the developer’s attorney, Stanley Parese, refused to offer any specific building size limitation his client would accept. In addition, Parese began a meeting of the planning board by declaring his client would move for a vote at town meeting to approve a building of unlimited size and roomslodging suites on 10 acres – no matter what the Planning Board recommended.

As a result, the town’s voters for now are faced with attending a May 17 town meeting with conflicting advice from the developer and the town’s elected planning board on how to deal with Deep’s threat to close the 207-acre golf course and terminate its approximately 40 employees.

Deep wants to be free to pitch to developers a building of any size on 10 acres; the planning board majority wants a cap at about 50,000 square feet. Deep purchased the course for $1.2 million about two years ago. The South Williamstown parcel has been cited by a state report as one of the most scenic areas in Massachusetts because of its expansive views of the 3,491-foot Mount Greylock, the state’s highest peak. It lies at the intersection of two major entries to Williamstown -– state Route 43 and U.S. Route 7.

The language recommended by the 3-2 vote would allow a developer to increase total buildings on the 207-acre site to 60,000 square feet by setting aside 40 acres under a perpetual conservation restriction. That would be in addition to 67 acres which must be put in conservation restriction to do any hotel development on a 10-acre parcel near Route 7 and the Five Corners. There is already about 10,000 square feet of golf buildings on the site, so the hotel would be capped at roughly 50,000 square feet.

The size restriction is important to Deep, because he has said he will seek an experienced developer to finance and build the hotel and he is concerned about presenting a town-approval with size flexibility. But the planning-board majority, in turn, does not trust that the result would be a hotel that is economically viable yet not oversized for the viewshed.

Some of the discussion at Wednesday's meeting was contentious and at some points personal, as the planning board settled into a familiar pattern of 3-2 advocacy, with Sarah Gardner, Elizabeth McGowan and Ann K. McCallum voting in favor of the size-limited hotel and D. Chris Winters and Amy C. Jeschawitz voting against it (because they wanted no size limitation).

For example, at one point Winters said a size limit on the building would “kill an economically viable opportunity for the site . . . and I think that was the intention from day one.” At that point and later, each of the three planners voting for the 50,000 square-foot restriction refuted his statement, saying they have consistently supported a hotel of some size as part of a plan to keep the golf course open and support open space. The board majority have argued for more information from Deep in order to assess the balance between a viable size and the affect on the views and environment at the town’s key gateway.

“There is not a number that I am going to utter,” Parese said. He said it is too early to assess what size is needed. “The square footage ends up being an artificial impediment” to that process, he said.

Going into Wednesday’s meeting, planners had hoped to reach a 5-0 consensus on some recommendation to voters on how to deal with a “Citizens Petition” to switch zoning of the golf course from 2.5-acre residential lots. The petition, if adopted by a two-thirds majority of those voting at town meeting, would allow for a “country inn” containing “guest units without kitchens.” That language would appear to permit multiple-room suites and non-kitchen cooking facilities typically found in fractional or time-share facilities. However, last week, Deep’s attorney said earlier language citing time-share ownership had been withdrawn.

Debates on Wednesday ranged across such issues as whether:

The language adopted by the three-vote majority represented a compromise.

The planning board, in seeking a site limit, was doing work that should be left to the zoning board during special permitting hearings.

A 50,000-square-foot hotel is large enough to be financially viable.

The board’s consideration of a zoning change for Williams College to build a 100-room hotel on Spring Street has been more deferential than treatment afforded Deep’s Waubeeka plan.

It is possible to find a balance between economic development and perpetual open-space protection.

Among key points of testimony or statements by board members:

It would be a “significant disaster” to vote down the project, said developer and Finance Committee member Charles Fox. The FinCom is slated to hear Deep’s economic arguments for the project at a meeting on Monday, May 9, the day before a May 10 local election to, among other things, choose two members of the planning board.

Selectman Hugh Daley said he thought a hotel of 120 rooms on 10 acres would be a “good plan.” He called it fair and reasonable.

“A compromise is not a compromise if it kills this proposal,” said former school principal and former selectman David Rempell. He said it would be “mind boggling” if the planning board did not recommend the hotel project.

The 50,000-square-foot building limit “is in fact a real compromise . . that will create a reasonably sized hotel,” said attorney Sherwood Guernsey, who lives alongside the golf course. “The beauty of the town is a major economic driver.”

“There is enough concern about building size that the metric [square footage] matters,” said Selectman Andrew Hogeland. A less-than-unanimous vote will “feed the narrative” that the project should be reworked, he added.

“I think this process is flawed and . . . at some levels I am embarrassed,” said Selectman Jane Patten. She had urged the Planning Board not to put a size restriction on the hotel building other than 120 "guest units."

"This whole process has practically been run by the developer and his lawyer," said South Williamstown resident Susan Schneski. "I just think the tail has been wagging the dog."

May 03, 2016

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – Members of the Williamstown Planning Board were struggling on Tuesday to find an approach to saving a golf course in South Williamstown from a threatened shutdown by its owner, Michael Deep, by agreeing to Deep’s request to authorize building a “New England country-style inn” alongside. The Planning Board was scheduled to meet at town hall at 5 p.m. on Wednesday to try and find common ground.

Deep has declared that unless voters at the May 17 Town Meeting approve a zoning change for the 207-acre parcel – considered one of the most scenic in the state because of its view of the 3,491-foot Mount Greylock – he will close the 18-hole public golf course, which he says is losing money, and seek to build affordable housing on the parcel. On Monday, Town Planner Andrew Groff posted on the Planning Board website three options for zoning changes:

OPTION ONE -- Characterized by Groff as supported by Deep, would permit a hotel of unlimited size to be built on a 10-acre parcel on U.S. Route 7 (New Ashford Road) immediately north of the current golf clubhouse. It appeared at last week’s Planning Board meeting to be supported by two board members, Amy Jeschawitz and D. Chris Winters. Deep and his attorney did not respond to email request for comment on Tuesday.

OPTION TWO -- Also discussed at last week’s meeting, would place a square-foot restriction on the size of a hotel and golf buildings within a similar 10-acre parcel. At the April 28 meeting, size limits of from 50,000 to 75,000-square-feet were discussed. By comparison, The 49-room Orchards Inn is 50,000 square feet. There was no agreement at last week’s meeting on what figure to use. At last week’s meeting, the notion of limiting the square-footage appeared supported by three members of the planning board, Sarah Gardner, Ann K. McCallum and Elizabeth McGowan.

OPTION THREE -- Drafted April 28 by board member Gardner. It sets a 50,000-square-foot cap on the size of all building on the Waubeeka site, but allows the size to grow up to 60,000 square feet if Deep agrees to put increasing amounts of land under a perpetual conservation restriction, barring any new building. Gardner said on Tuesday that her proposal was being last-minute reworked.

GUERNSEY BACKS GARDNER PLAN

Former state Rep. Sherwood Guernsey, an attorney who lives adjacent to the golf course, has been among a group of South Williamstown -- including some non-abutting town residents -- meeting and commenting on the Planning Board’s deliberations.

Guernsey emailed the group on Monday saying he felt the Gardner ssquare-foot-limitation option deserved their support. Guernsey wrote that limiting the gross floor area of buildings “is much more protective of a small Country Inn than acreage; if we give a developer 10 acres, he’ll fill it.” Guernsey also wrote that a hotel bigger than roughly the size of The Orchards “is hardly a reasonably sized country inn that would fit with the beauty of the value, a prized value for all Williamstown residents.”

Deep and his attorney, Stanley Parese, did not respond to email inquiries. A copy of the email inquires send by GreylockNews.com to them may be found at THIS LINK.

All three proposals include some form of conservation restriction on a 67-acre wooded parcel that is part of the Waubeeka, but not used for golf. Options one and two would allow Deep to build the hotel before restricting the 67 acres. The Gardner option would invoke the restriction when a special permit to begin construction is issued. There is also disagreement about whether trees could be cut to allow a solar-panel installation on the 67 acres.

There is also disagreement about whether the protected 67 acres should be governed by the town or a “qualified conservation organization” and whether it should be open to public recreation.

All three proposals define the hotel as including “guest units without kitchens,” implying that units could have multiple rooms and kitchen-like facilities within a room not called a kitchen. It is not clear whether such language would make such units attract for fractional ownership. At the April 28 meeting, Deep’s attorney said “timeshares” were no longer a part of his proposal.

WHAT IS INTENT?

A striking difference among the three proposals is their statement of intent. The Gardner proposal, as made public on Monday, says the zoning change – the “Waubeeka Overlay District” is “intended to preserve the existing golf course by allowing new income-producing uses on the property and allowing for open space.”

Indeed, it has been a focus of Deep’s advertising supporting his development bid that his desire is to preserve the golf course and the related jobs.

The other two proposals, including the one said by the town to be supported by Deep, declare the zoning change is to “permit and encourage redevelopment at the Waubeeka property” to preserve most of it as a community recreational and open-space asset that is consistent with the South Williamstown Historic District and is “encouraging the reuse and enhancement of an existing economic asset.” They do not mention preserving a golf course.

TOWN COUNSEL IN THE LOOP

Groff, the town planner, said on Tuesday that the town’s attorney has been reviewing and advising on various iterations of the zoning change, and “based on the guidance received from counsel I believe both staff requested drafts (Options 1 and 2) are legally sound documents.”

May 02, 2016

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- It makes more sense to build a hotel in South Williamstown at Waubeeka Golf Links than on the end of Spring Street, and a hotel needs to be about 100 rooms or larger to be economically viable, says Carl ​J​. Faulkner, the former longtime owner-operator of the Williams Inn.

​"In Williamstown, the best location for a new inn is the present site of the Williams Inn, even if the inn needs to be closed for about two years in order to accomplish this," Faulkner said in a interview and written comments to GreylockNews.com. "Otherwise, the Waubeeka site would be the next-best site. Spring Street/Latham Street, I feel is less desirable. It's location, location, location."

The problem with a Spring Street site proposed by Williams College for a "new" 60-room Williams Inn is that it is not on a major route ​traveled by ​the ​tourists who are the main source of economic viability for any non-resort hotel, said Faulkner. Faulkner noted that the intersections of U.S. Route 7 and state Route 43 at South Williamstown was once the location of the Idlewild Inn. While not familiar with developer Michael Deep's proposals for a "New England-style country inn" resort at Waubeeka, Faulkner expressed doubt any tourist- and event-venue hotel could be viable with less than about 100 rooms.

"To me,​ ​​with 60 rooms, you can't make money," he said. "The college is proposing a building that is too small -- 60 rooms will not satisfy the needs," said Faulkner. "We found that in order to get conventions you need at least 100 rooms. Also, I think the college is thinking they are the sole generator of rooms. They are not. They are a substantial generator of rooms, but hopefully most the rooms will come from tourists driving through the area."

If Williams builds only 60 rooms, Faulkner believes the facility will be a perpetual money loser, subsidized by Williams. ​"In my opinion, 100-120 rooms is the most profitable size for an inn," said Faulkner. "Above that size you need more staff and under that size you still need the same staff that a 100-room inn would need. Also, in order to attract regional conferences, reunions, antique-auto groups and other conventions, you need over 100 rooms."​

In a "Q&A on the Williams Inn Project" release last week by Williams, spokesman James Kolesar asserts that putting a hotel at the intersection of two major roads -- as would be the case at Waubeeka or at the current Williams Inn site -- may have been a good place "before the invention of the Internet." However, Kolesar wrote:"Few travelers any more head out without knowing where they intend to stay."

Faulkner commented during an interview last week with GreylockNews.com, which sought figures from him about tax payments by the Williams Inn. He co-owned the Williams Inn with his wife, Marilyn, for more than ​35​ years, ground leasing six acres of land from Williams. Faulkner says he supports Williams College's effort to build a new Williams Inn, but not at a Spring Street location.

"I'm in favor of a New Inn, he said. I'm just not in favor of Spring Street . . . personally, I think the Waubeeka site is a better site for a hotel than where the college wants to build," said Faulkner. "It is a more traveled road. There is precedent for it, where the Idlewild was and that was in the area of 100 to 120 rooms. The college-chosen site is a poor one." In the interview, Faulkner made the following points:

​​No matter which location, Faulkner cautioned about hotel over building in Berkshire County. He said three new inns are open or under construction this year in Lenox or Pittsfield, ad a time when hundreds of SABIC workers in Pittsfield are losing jobs or relocating to Texas. Two new inns -- the Redwood and the Greylock Mill -- are in building or planning stages in North Adams.

​An inn at the end of Spring Street can be expect​ed​ to generate "a minimum of s​everal​ tractor-trailer trucks weekdays making deliveries." In addition, multiple intercity buses​ and Berkshire Regional Transit Authority buses​ stop daily at The Williams Inn, Faulkner said. These buses will have to either find another stop or negotiate the bottom of Spring Street.

The mix of retail on Spring Street -- many restaurants and few "browsable shops" was of diminishing interest to Williams Inn lodgers and the college may be exacerbating that by adding public dining at The Log and in a proposed new bookstore building. The short walk to Spring Street from the Williams Inn wa​s​ not a detere​nt, Faulkner said.

​​Faulkner ​discounted Kolesar's assertion that​ the current Williams Inn building is not "very energy inefficient". ​ To the contrary, Faulkner said. Five or six years ago, it received the government's best Energy Star efficiency rating in New England he said. Also, the Inn's $3-million, 24-room addition completed in 2001 was completed to the then-latest energy standards, he said. In 2012, Yankee Magazine named the hotel "New England inn of the year.

Speculating about options other than a Spring Street location, Faulkner said he believes there ​may be enough space on the current Williams Inn site to build a new inn while keeping the current building in operation. In a worst-case scenario, the current inn could be razed and a new one built on a fast-development schedule. The 2001 addition was completed in nine months, he said. Asked if the town could get buy without the Williams Inn for nine months, Fa​u​lkner replied: "I'd ave to say yes."

Asked if the current site could fit both a new inn building and a new Williams College Museum of Art, Faulkner ​he had no knowledge of the art museum's site requirements. Faulkner said that at the time the college was concluding its relationship with them as operators, he was told the college was thinking of using the inn building as a temporary dormitory. However, the college now says it will tear down the building if a new inn is build and "greenfield" the land until a new use is determined.

The Faulkners are experienced innkeepers with decades of experience​. ​After working in accounting and management in Boston hotels, the Faulkner's in 1968 gradually acquiried or managed hotels in Plymouth, Mass., Rochester, N.Y. ,​ ​​ Southbury, Conn., ​​and Williamstown, ​ranging in size between 104 and 200 rooms. ​​In Williamstown, their business relied upon a collaborative relationship with Williams College. ​ ​ ​In 2013, as Faulkner tells the story, Williams abru​ptly acquired the building mortgage from Faulkner's bank, then told the couple ​Williams was taking over the hotel with new management, ​easing their May 1, 2014, r​etirement. Faulkner now calls himself a "fruit farmer" and says he has ​​not ​entered the hotel in months.​ ​​ "All this is not my problem," he said. "I'm retired."

April 30, 2016

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- The town has taken a first step toward creating a super-fast Internet competitor to Time Warner cable, and Crocker Communications Inc., the Greenfield-based company which managed building a municipal system for Leverett, Mass., said on Friday it may be interested in helping.

Responses are due by May 20 to a town "Request for Information" which was posted on Williamstown.net -- the town's website -- on Thursday. The RFI says the town is evaluating "options for making broadband available to its residents and businesses" by "evaluating the last-mile options to make fiber optic cable available to its residents and businesses."

In an email exchange with GreylockNews.com, Matt Crocker, president of family owned Crocker Communications Inc., said: "We are very interested. Thanks for sending me the link. We will work up a response." Crocker's participation in the Leverett 1-gigabit municipal Internet system has been written up as a national case study. Now, nearly 500 Western Massachusetts residents are petitioning Massachusetts Gov. Charles Baker to release $50 million in funds to build rural broadband.

The town's RFI, authored by Selectman Andrew Hogeland, notes that the quasi-public Massachusetts Broadband Initiative delivers super-fast Internet service to Williams College and the Clark Art Institute, as well as to town buildings and other community-anchor institutions such as town hall, the library, schools and fire station.

But so far, connecting this government-owned and paid-for Internet connectivity, has proved a competitive and bureaucratic challenge throughout Western Massachusetts, despites its educational value. In effect, super-fast, publicly owned Internet connections exists throughout the region, but almost no citizens can connect to them. The town's RFI is a response to suggestions in last year's town Economic Development Committee report. Hogeland served on the committee.

That December 2015 report concluded the town "should continue to investigate the potential of broadband access to be a community asset for both residents and businesses, and to understand the project scope, costs, benefits and organization options for such a project so that an informed decision can be made whether to pursue broadband access."

Connections to the Internet have been available in Williamstown and the region for at least 25 years, first through "dial-up" phone connections, then through so-called "Digital Subscriber Lines" -- DSL -- via phones, and for at least 20 years from the monopoly cable-television franchisee -- now Time Warner Cable and soon to be Charter Communications via a merger.

But the issue has been speed of access. As entertainment -- movies and other services such as connection to medical-technology or distance learning -- have increasingly moved from text to multi-media, the need for faster connections is seen by some as an economic-development priority.

Verizon has technical difficulty delivering speeds of more than 5 megabits/second over phone lines because they are copper wires to homes; Time Warner's fiber-optic cable lines to homes can support speeds many times faster, but Time Warner's prices for doing so are prohibitively high for consumers -- $80 a month for only 10 megabits/second -- barely fast enough to watch a low-definition movie. Also, both Verizon and Time Warner's standard services are "asynchronous" -- the speed to download (consume) information are as advertised, but the speeds to upload (create) information are a fraction of that. Thus they create a culture and reality of consumption rather than creation.

By contrast, Leverett residents, served by Massachusetts Broadband and local fiber-optic cables managed by Crocker, delivers 1 gigabit service to homes (that's 1,000 megabits/second) for $80/month -- or about 100 times the monopoly broadband supplier Time Warner is selling for $80/month. And the Leverett service is "synchronous" -- the upload and download speeds are the same.

Besides non-broadband consumer Internet services provided by Verizon, and monopoly-priced broadband services from Time Warner, the other potential superfast link to the web in the Greylock region besides MassBroadband is a fiber optic cable buried along the old Boston & Maine railroad right-of-way. It's not clear who controls the cable, installed during the 1990s by the old MCI Telecommunications Corp. or what the cost might be to connect to it.

April 28, 2016

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – The Planning Board is poised to recommend next week that voters approve a zoning change that would allow a 60,000-70,000 square foot “country inn” resort alongside the Waubeeka Golf Links. The developer withheld a decision on whether to agree to the building size limitation.

There would be no specific number of guest units or rooms in the zoning revision, under the plan favored by three of five board members – Sarah Gardner, Elizabeth McGowan and Ann K. McCallum – leaving it up to a developer the interior layout and uses within the total square footage.

After hearing the developer’s attorney, public testimony and discussing among themselves for more than two hours, the five-member board found itself lacking unanimity on whether to either specify a square-foot size limit on the building, or set a limitation of 10 acres on the total footprint of resort and golf-course buildings.

So they instructed Town Planner Andrew Groff to come up with two documents – one taking each approach -- and scheduled a meeting for Wed., May 4, at 5 p.m. at Town Hall to decided one way or the other.

By the end of Thursday night’s meeting, it appeared three three members of the board were ready to go with a square-foot limitation and the other two –D. Chris Winters and Amy C. Jeschawitz -- were uncommitted. Whether it will be 60,000 or 70,000 square feet or even 75,000 square feet -- appeared still a matter of discussion.

The board is working toward a vote on whether to recommend adoption an amendment to an article on the May 17 Town Meeting warrant. The amendment would replace the language in a Citizens Petition placed on the meeting warrant by supporters of developer Michael Deep.

DEEP ACCEPTS 67-ACRE CONSERVATION RESTRICTION

Deep’s attorney, Stan Parese, appeared to surprise the board and some audience members when he announced during an introductory presentation that Deep was prepared to commit to putting a permanent conservation restriction on 67 acres of the 207-acre golf-course property, which sits in a valley cited as one of the most scenic in the state. The 67 acres is presently wet and wooded.

The decision was praised by a number of speakers, including botanist Pamela B. Weatherbee, who owns an adjacent parcel. “I find the idea of a conservation restriction for the 67 acres very, very attractive because it is with other protected lands,” said Weatherbee. She called the 67-acre parcel “very unusual, with many springs.”

Parese said Deep would like the conservation restriction to permit development of a well and underwater thermal heating resources as well as electricity-generating solar panels if possible. Some speakers expressed concern about having to cut trees – which sequester carbon dioxide – to install solar panels. Weatherbee said solar might not be compatible with a conservation restriction. Parese said if that turned out to be the case, Deep would still go along with the restriction.

There were these additional highlights at the meeting:

Selectman Hugh Daley, in testimony, urged the Planning Board not to be fixed on requiring a conservation restriction on more than 67 acres in exchange for supporting the hotel zoning -- given that Deep was agreeing to not develop homes on the golf course.

Parese said the Deep was willing to limit the development footprint to 10 acres. He said he would have to consult his client’s architect – David Westall – to determine if they felt an overall size limit of 60,000-70,000 square feet was economically feasible. By comparison, the current 128-room Williams Inn is about 70,000 square feet and the 49-room Orchards Inn is about 49,000 square feet. Williams College’s proposed inn at the foot of Spring Street is planned as 60 rooms and 49,575 square feet.

Parese also said the developer had abandoned language that would have specified application of the state’s timeshare development law to the project. “So everybody who’s been saying a 40-acre, timeshare resort – it’s gone,” Parese said.

Presently, Waubeeka is in a 2.5-acre residential zoning district. If votes approve the hotel overlay district, Parese said “my client is in for a long ride, he’s losing money all the way, but he’s willing to see it through” to starting of construction estimated in 2020 after lining up development partners, design, zoning and planning final approvals and financing.

Numerous speakers, both public and among the board, declared support for the objective of creating a development opportunity that could sustain the 18-hole public golf course that has been in operation for a half century. “And it would be beneficial to the town to have some increased employment and taxes,” said Sherwood Guernsey, an attorney and former state representative who’s home abuts the golf course. He said the challenge was to find a balance between fostering economic development and not threatening too much open space.

Both Guernsey and public speaker Foster Goodrich asserted “frustration” that some advertisements placed by Deep citing tax and other economic benefits of the proposed project appeared to them to be inflated. Parese said he was confident in the numbers and said they could be made more accurate once the details of the project are clearer.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – Developer Michael Deep might be overestimating the tax benefits to the town of his proposed 120-dwelling-unit “country inn” proposal at the Waubeeka Golf Links, data from the town and the Williams Inn suggest. But it's hard to be sure because the developer has so far not provided information to the public about his calculations.

In advertisements on Facebook and the Time Warner cable system, and in written materials, Deep has asserted that “an estimated $500,000 per year in local tax revenue will be generated when the new facility is in operation.”

As a benchmark, the 128-room Williams Inn paid $64,388.92 in real-estate and personal property taxes in the last full reported tax year, according to figures provided to GreylockNews.com by Town Manager Jason Hoch. Those figures are based upon an assess value of $3,524,100 for the inn property.

The Williams Inn most recently paid $120,000-a-year in room taxes and $9,000 in food-and-beverage taxes to the state, according to Carl T. Faulkner, who co-owned and ran with his wife the Williams Inn until their retirement and sale to Williams College last year.

While there have been estimates from Deep that his project might cost $45 million, it’s not clear that figure would have the most significant bearing on the property taxes it pays, town officials say. More critical is its business success.

Williamstown assesses hotels and motels based on industry-standard methodology knows as the income-capitalization approach, according to Town Assessor William Barkin. “Which takes a property’s net income before debt service and converts it into an indicator of value.” (a complete description from Barkin of the method appears at the bottom of this blog post)

Given their similar size, and presuming similar levels of success, a Waubeeka project of the size suggested by Deep would pay a total of less than $200,000 in taxes on an apples-to-apples basis with the Williams Inn – and a percentage of the room taxes are retained by the state.

Deep and his attorney have not responded to a request for detail about methodology or assumptions for the $500,000 estimate. However, Deep is scheduled to appear May 9 before the Williamstown Finance Committee to explain the proposed project’s economic impact.

COMPARISON TO WILLIAMS COLLEGE PROPOSAL

Last week, Williams College official James Kolesar circulated to the public a “Q&A on the Williams Inn Project” – the college’s proposal to raze the current inn after constructing a new, 60-100-room hotel at the base of Spring Street. In his Q&A, Kolesar said “we estimate that the net effect will be an annual addition of $60,000 in property tax and another $50,000 in room tax, bring the net effect of the Williams Inn to approximately $125,000 a year in property taxes and approximately $260,000 a year in room and meal taxes (a portion of which goes to the state).

ASSESSOR’S METHODOLOGY

Here is the rest of assessor Barkin’s explanation of valuing hotels, as provided to GreylockNews.com:

“Briefly put, the appraisal consists of first ascertaining the potential gross income from all sources then subtracting out income loss due to vacancy; then all expenses, to arrive at a net operating income. This net operating figure is then divided by a mathematical factor known as the Capitalization Rate, which is the weighted cost of the invested capital that takes the form of mortgage debt and equity. The resulting figure is the estimate of value.

“For property tax purposes in Williamstown, all hotel/motel reported income and expense data is analyzed to produce an equalized “rate” schedule which is then applied to all of the hospitality properties. Individual business enterprise value or “good will” is eliminated from the analysis. This methodology preserves uniformity and consistency when assessing “like” properties. Thus, the town does not subsidizes establishments for poor management nor penalize those with superior management."

April 27, 2016

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – The owner of the 207-acre Waubeeka Golf Links in South Williamstown, set in a valley with one of the most celebrated views in Massachusetts, will go before the planning board Thursday night at 7 p.m. at Town Hall and argue against any permanent "conservation-restriction" guarantee that any of the property will remain forever open -- as well as any size limitation on an up-to-120-"guest unit" country inn.

Two weeks ago, Town Manager Jason Hoch – seeking a compromise between a majority of planning-board members and developer Michael Deep, offered language that would impose a legal conservation restriction on at least 67 acres of the parcel, and more than that as the size of a proposed 120-room country-inn development grew. But in changes to Hoch’s draft made public on Wednesday by Deep’s attorney, Stan Parese, the language about conservation restrictions is removed.

Meanwhile, Planning Board member Ann McCallum was described by Hoch as working on her own adjustments to Hoch’s “compromise” proposal. Both Hoch’s proposal and Parese’s revisions represent proposed amendments to a “citizens petition” warrant article which will be before voters at the May 17 Town Meeting.

A reduction to 10 acres in the size of the parcel (with the overall 207 acres) on which the country-inn structures would have to be constructed.

A numerical ceiling of 120 “guest units” – all “without kitchens” on the development. Each unit could be multiple rooms. Also, the Parese proposal eliminates any maximum square-footage for the inn structures. Hoch has proposed a maximum of 50,000 square feet – about the same size as The Orchards Inn.

An agreement that “no dwelling units” could be built elsewhere on the golf course other that as part of the country-inn development, once a developer obtains – and maintains – a special permit for the country inn. However, if Deep is unable to put together an inn-development package, he could revert to closing the golf course and developing housing lots.

Acceptance of Hoch’s definition of a country inn as “an establishment where overnight transient sleeping accommodations are provided to lodgers in one or more, but not to exceed 120, guest units without kitchens.” A restaurant, gathering and banquet facilities and accessory recreational facilities such as a swimming pool or hiking trails would be permitted.